1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to apparatus for and a method of stacking containers which are disposed within individual plastic envelopes and more particularly to an apparatus for and a method of tucking portions of the envelopes into the containers and nesting the containers to form a stack.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Hotels, motels, and the like frequently use plastic, disposable cups which, for sanitation, are encompassed within a thin, transparent, plastic film bag. To minimize shipping costs and conserve space, portions of the bags have been manually inserted into the cups which heretofore have been manually nested with similarly configured cups. The bags or envelopes have small holes therein to permit air trapped within the bag or envelope to escape when the bags or envelopes are stuffed into the cups. Such manual stuffing is time consuming and expensive.
Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide apparatus for and a method of stuffing a portion of the plastic envelope into the container disposed within the envelope and nesting the stuffed container with a similarly stuffed container to form a stack.
The holes which are provided in the plastic envelopes or bags are relatively small and thus some time is required to permit the escape of air which is trapped within the envelopes or bags. If the envelope or bag is compressed too rapidly, the bag or envelope may burst. Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide tucking and nesting apparatus which will gradually compact the nested stuffed containers.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide tuck and nest apparatus which will form a stack of nested containers and include mechanism for releasably interrupting the downstream movement of a downstream portion of the stack such that, as successive cups are stuffed and added to the stack to move the upstream stack portion toward the downstream stack portion, each cup in the stack will gradually move more closely towards the next succeeding downstream cup and the spacing between each pair of nested cups in the stack will be less than the spacing between the next adjacent pair of containers upstream thereof.
Still another object of the present invention is to provide stacking apparatus of the type described which includes a container conveyor, apparatus for tucking a portion of the envelopes into the containers and then nesting the containers to form a stack, and aligning mechanism for successively aligning the closed downstream ends of bagged containers to be stacked with the open upstream end of the upstream container in the stack.
Other objects and advantages of the present invention will become apparent to those of ordinary skill in the art as the description thereof proceeds.